Eight stories that explore emotionally intricate relationships that cross traditional boundaries of ethnicity, religion, and culture.

Maxim D. Shrayer is professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies at Boston College. Among his books are The World of Nabokov's Stories, Russian Poet/Soviet Jew, and the literary memoir Waiting for America: A Story of Emigration. A bilingual author and translator, Shrayer won the National Jewish Book Award for the two-volume Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature.